Browse Books

Reviewer: Maulik A Dave

This book presents the design of natural user interfaces (NUIs) from various perspectives, including historical, design ethos, technological, language-based, system-based, and process-based. Touch-based and gesture-based interfaces are covered specifically, as they pose new challenges compared to other user interfaces. Part 1 introduces NUIs through the historical perspective of user interfaces, past interactions of systems with environments, and related areas. It develops design guidelines for what NUIs must, should, or could have, and emphasizes the meaning of NUI as "natural user" interface rather than "natural" user interface. Part 2 discusses the design ethos of NUIs in detail. Design guidelines are developed based on: the design principle of starting with the simple, and building the complex from the simple; contextual environment considerations; 3D aspects of NUIs; social computing considerations; seamless user experiences; real user experiences with NUIs; and the varying roles and responsibilities of users. The design principle of scaffolding, which encourages users to develop their own skills, is also discussed with respect to NUIs. Part 3 covers technological aspects. Many topics are discussed, including: touch-based interfaces, compared to mouse-based interfaces; the issue of "fat fingers," involving the problems caused by the possible mismatch between the size of user fingers and icons; problems associated with feedback mechanisms for touch-based interfaces; and design guidelines for gestures. Part 4 highlights interaction language aspects of NUIs. The mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics (MDA) framework for NUI design is introduced, as is the design of primitives-the building blocks of the language-for NUIs. The stages of a gesture are explained, along with related topics: resolving possible ambiguity in a gesture; various properties of gestures; self-revealing gestures, where users are presented with an interface to which their response is gestural input; multi-touch self-revealing gestures; and the building of a gestural system, including flow options and the splitting and combining of modes. Part 5 covers NUI system design, including various differences in touch and gestural devices, and the promises of NUI systems. NUI systems with respect to number of contacts and contact data are also discussed, along with designs considering characteristics of input devices such as size and orientation. The last part of the book discusses process perspectives of NUI designs: the user-derived interface approach; various types of false gesture recognitions; a rapid iterative testing and evaluation method for NUI design; and engineering aspects. A background in user interfaces is enough to understand the book. Each chapter has a section on further reading for researchers. Very useful guidelines are presented for user interface designers. The book can be used as a textbook for a course on NUI design at the undergraduate, graduate, or post-graduate level. It has many diagrams to help the reader understand the concepts. Online Computing Reviews Service